Closed circuit: segregation on the Myanmar train to nowhere

This entry was posted by Swani Chande on October 2, 2018 at 2:40 pm

More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled violent clashes and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August last year. Photographer Hardy Amo makes the train journey through the scattered camps and villages where Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims once lived side by side

The train leaves Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, and slowly begins the 11-mile journey to the village of Zaw Pu Gyar, edging across a stretch of countryside where Buddhists and Muslims once lived peacefully as neighbours.

But this is a land now marked by segregation and carrying the scars of brutal clashes between the two communities. Tensions have remained high since the violent riots of 2012, when the Muslims were expelled from the capital and pushed into makeshift settlements.